1996 Low-Key Hillclimbs Basic Rules

Equipment and Conduct

For mass-start races,
USCF rules for conduct
and equipment for a road race apply. For individual-start races,
USCF equipment rules
for conduct and equipment for a time-trial apply, including
a ban on "taking pace behind other riders
or vehicles closer than 25 meters ahead or 2 meters to the side."
In both cases,
a
certified helmet is required.

Basic Scoring

Each rider on single-gender bikes gets for the day points equal to
his/her speed as a percentage of the speed of
the fastest finisher of the same sex. For example,
if you win in 20:00 and Kev finishes in 40:00,
you get 100 points and Kev gets 50. If Mark finishes
in 25:00, he gets 80 points.

Cyclists on mixed-gender bikes (presumably at least a tandem....)
have their scores equal to the percentage of the fastest rider's
speed of either gender. Thus if Mark and Jill ride a tandem together,
both will receive the same score, even though Mark is male and Jill
is female.

Total score at the end of the series is tabulated
by adding the following:

8 times your best score

7 times your second best score

6 times your third best score

5 times your fourth best score

4 times your fifth best score

3 times your sixth best score

2 times your seventh best score

1 times your eighth best score

Thus, your best results are emphasized, but one is also
rewarded for showing up each week. Zero points are scored
for weeks which are rained out or for which one does not
participate.

Your maximum possible score after one race is thus 800 points.
At the end of the series, a perfect score is 3600 points.

Ride Coordinators

What about coordinators? (warning -- this sounds complicated, but is
actually quite simple...) For purposes of individual, but not team,
standings, a rider who helps coordinate a climb during a week and is
thus unable to compete may substitute for that week the score (s)he
receives during the next week of the series during which (s)he at least
start the climb. If the coordinating week is the last week
of the series during which the coordinator starts, the
score from the first week of the series during
which (s)he started will be used instead.
Scores are removed from consideration for subsequent weeks coordinated when
they are used for one week coordinated; thus no week's score can be used
more than twice. This implies the number of weeks during
which a rider receives such substitute scores as a coordinator
cannot exceed the number of weeks during which the rider
actually officially started.

(Whew!)

Team Scores

Team scores are tabulated by adding the top 2 scores by members
of a team each week. Thus, different riders can contribute
to a team's scores on different weeks, depending on the relative
performance of teammates. These scores can be either male or female
for the ``overall team score'', female only for the ``female only''
team score, or male only for the ``male only'' team score.
The net score for a team is calculated in a fashion similar to
that used to calculate the net scores for individuals.
The maximum team score is thus 1600 after one event and 7200 after
eight or nine.

Teams

Teams made up as declared by riders. These can be official USCF
teams, touring clubs, or just informal groups formed just for
this series. Riders switching teams in the middle of the
series score for the newly joined team only for weeks following
the switch, scores from weeks prior granted to other teams remain
with those teams.

There are also single-sex team rankings. A team's women's score
is the sum of the top two scores registed by individual women on the
team in the given week. Likewise, a team's men's score is the
sum of the top two scores registered by individual men on the team
in the week. Overall rankings are maintained in these categories,
as well, using the same formula that is applied to the team-overall score.